I Loved You More (52 page)

From out of the dark: “Oh.”

Then: “Did you hear about Olga?”

“No.”

“Double mastectomy, man,” Hank says. “Fucking cancer.”

“Fucking AIDS,” I say.

“
Porca Miseria
,” Hank says.

I MAKE TEA
and we sit on the couch. Lemon Zinger for Hank, chamomile for me. Our days of Budweisers and cocktails and doobies are over. The fire's really going. Still, that batch of wood with all the pitch. Hank loves how the fire cracks and spits. There's a couple times I have to lean down to keep the fire screen closed.

The Christmas tree ain't big, maybe four foot, a spruce. It's behind the couch. I bought the tree that day for two dollars. It was the only one of three trees left on the lot. The guy just wanted to give it to me.

In the basement, when I opened the box marked
Christmas Stuff
, all the ornaments were from the two years with Ruth. The Rudolph ornament. The Cinderella ornament. The red balls, the blue balls, the green balls with snowmen on them Ruth bought at Fred Meyer. The smaller bell-shaped lavender ones. The
garlands, the tinsel. The ball Ruth made with a photo of me on it naked doing
tai chi
that day we went to Sauvie Island.

All that Christmas shit, all the memories. Ruth had been what made Christmas, Christmas. I threw the whole box in the garbage. That's when I saw it. Just the black hairy legs.

Tony Escobar's Fairy Drag Queen. The Ken doll as Christmas Angel Barbie. Her lopsided halo you can plug in. I pick up the Fairy Drag Queen, lift up her dress. The red jock strap, the wired connector on his asshole so he can sit, a proper star, on the very top tip of the tree.

No wonder everybody hates Christmas. Fucking memories, man.

TWO HOURS LATER,
after scrambled eggs and sprouted wheat toast, Hank's in my living room on the couch, sitting close to the wall. Another cup of tea. The firelight on the bruised, dented face of my friend. Me all the way on the other side of the couch with my cup. Hands still fluttering. Just over my left shoulder, Hank's right shoulder, at eye level, the tip of the Christmas tree up his ass, the Fairy Drag Queen pokes himself up over the couch, his flowing robe, his lopsided halo, his wings spread, his arms out. Measuring the years, all that space, on the couch between us.

Silences at first. Just the crackling fire. Not bad silences, but Big Ben knows something's going on. Little Ben thinks the silences are my fault. And they partly are, I mean at this point I'm still a pretty fucked up guy. But what's really going on, what's heavy in those silences between me and Hank – besides the grief of years and hellacious suffering, is that there's something Hank ain't saying. A grief so big in his heart it won't be until the next day, after Hank's on his third or fourth cup of coffee, that he'll finally be able to speak it.

It takes us a while, that night by the fire, but finally Hank and I do relax some and we get to talking talking. Just like in the old days, it seems, when there was an actual place in the world
that existed only because we existed. In a space together, Hank and me, inside something. Under a miracle umbrella.

“Hell, Gruney,” Hank says. “What the fuck's happened to us?”

“Fucked, ain't it?” I say.

“It's the kind of cancer usually only people with blue eyes get,” Hank says.

“The Jewish doctor on 83rd,” I say, “said
you're HIV positive so you're going to get sick, so you're going to die
.”

“You knew in New York?” Hank says. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Chamomile tea smells like when I used to bale hay. Tastes like baled hay, too.

“You were so excited about Florida and Barry Hannah,” I say. “It was such a downer.”

“Why didn't you tell
me
?” I say. “It's been more than five years, man, since we've talked.”

Silence. The sense there's something hidden or missing. I feel it in my throat, in my breath. I think it is my soul.

“I just didn't know how to do it,” Hank says. “Hi, Gruney, I have cancer.”

Outside, Christmas carolers somewhere out there sing “Silent Night.” In Hank's new eye, there's a flame. An actual fire. It takes me a moment to figure. In his glass eye, the fire is a reflection.

The carolers' “Silent Night” gets louder, walks past us on Morrison just outside the window, turns south down the street. On the corner there, the carolers stop and laugh and talk. The winter night in their voices. After several tries, it's another night, “O Holy Night.” Hank and I sit so still. We are every Christmas we have lived.

“How long ago was that?” Hank asks.

“What?”

“The last time in New York,” Hank says, “when we stood in front of Auden's poem.”

“Going on twelve years,” I say.

“Holy fuck,” Hank says. “Twelve years.”

“That poem's a part of me,” I say.

“Just one fucking line,” Hank says, “but it rips your heart out.”

“It's a line from a larger poem,” I say.

“Someday,” Hank says, “let's you and I go back and read that poem again.”

Another life, another world, so far away, so impossible that Hank and I could stand together one more time at #77 St. Mark's Place.

Regret, man, fucking regret.

“I was in denial big time,” I say. “Wouldn't accept that HIV had anything to do with AIDS.”

“Did you ever get your doctorate?” I ask.

“I've just got my dissertation to finish,” Hank says. “They've given me an extension.”

“I called a bunch of times,” I say. “Got your voicemail at first. Then nothing.”

“When did you go into the hospital?” Hank asks.

“December first '96,” I say.

“Man, in '96 I was lying in a quarantined room,” Hank says. “There was so much fucking radiation they delivered my food through a slot in the door.”

“Chemo, too?” I ask.

“Threw my guts up,” Hank says.

“I've never thrown up,” I say, “All these years, not once. Almost shit myself to death, though. I was down to like 160 pounds.”

“Shitting, man,” Hank says. “You think you ain't ever going to stop. I got down to 140.”

“My asshole was so sore,” I say, “I couldn't use paper anymore. Had to shower after I shit.”

“Gave me some honking hemorrhoids,” Hank says.

“I named my hemorrhoid after the homeopathic doctor who told me the cure was to drink more milk,” I say.

“Julie O'Connor,” I say. “I call my hemorrhoid Julie O'Connor.”

It's something to see, Hank Christian's laugh. That big burst from down deep in him shaking him around. I'd almost forgot how overwhelmed he gets. Just like that, Hank is down on the floor on his hands knees, laughing. Trying to get his breath. I'm happy that Hank is laughing. The strange silence has gone and Hank is laughing. Even more, I'm happy I am still a guy who can make him laugh like that. Of course him laughing makes me laugh too.

Weird. Laughter in my body. As I'm laughing I say to myself
this is laughing
. After all the suffering and the horror now
laughter
. I mean, what the fuck is it. I'm coughing and my belly hurts and I can't breathe, it's so intense.

Hank pulls out a handkerchief and blows his nose.
Porca fucking Miseria
, Hank says and leans against the couch. His arm touches my leg and he knows his arm is touching my leg and he keeps his arm there.

Silence again. The heaviness of it. I figure it's just the depression, me over here, trying to get over there.

Hank, all in black, is stretched out in front of the firelight. That's when I first notice all the weight he's gained. I'm a little shocked. But only for a moment. That quick, Hank's body, to me, is perfect again. Weird, though. Hank's extra weight makes me feel better about my gut and pendulous breast.

Rain beating down on the tin roof of the porch. Me on the couch, Hank on the floor, his arm against my leg. Behind us, the Fairy Drag Queen's outstretched arms.

Hank's bare feet right up against the fire. So fragile and smooth, his feet, as if they're made out of porcelain. Our two empty cups of tea with the string and the labels hanging over the lips, setting on the hearth. The pitch and the spitting fire.

Long long moments just staring at the fire. Finally, the silence makes me too too crazy. I just blurt it out:

“Bye bye, Mr. Chemotherapy!”

Hank's down for the count.

Fucking laughter, man.

THE COUCH IS
long and soft and wide and I give Hank a big fluffy pillow and a duvet. Hank's in the bathroom first, brushing his teeth. Gargling. Pouring out his pills. When I'm finished in the bathroom, I turn off all the lights. Unplug the Christmas tree. Get into bed. Like always, I've forgotten to turn down the heat. The thermostat's in the living room right by the couch. I'm just in my T-shirt and underwear. Years ago, I'd have secretly wanted Hank to see me undressed like that. But with the AIDS belly and the pendulous breast, I'm thankful it's dark and I'm covered.

In the living room, just an arm length from Hank on the couch, I'm punching down the digital thermostat.

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart,” Hank says.

“Happy Birthday,” I say.

“Merry Christmas,” Hank says.

I'm almost back to my bedroom when Hank asks:

“Idaho was really something, wasn't it?”

My heart starts beating so loud. Reuben and Sal and Gary. I don't know if I can speak that they are dead out loud. I clear my throat, try my best to make my voice sound normal, which makes my voice sound weird.

“Idaho was a miracle,” I say.

“How
are
those guys? Is Ephraim doing all right?”

This next silence is mine, all mine. I sit down on my bed. The years I hardly slept, the eleven days I didn't sleep at all. Those nights are still on my bed, a ghost story that's a fog that lies across the bedspread. There's no doubt about it. To tell Hank about Reuben and Sal and Gary is going to kill me.

“He's still smoking a pack of More Menthols a day,” I say.

My breath. I wait for Hank's next question. And wait.

From the living room comes an old familiar sound.

Hank Christian is snoring.

MORNINGS SUCK. MORNINGS
have always sucked, but since I was diagnosed they really suck. Then the seven months I was dying and in denial – big-time suck. Then AIDS. Every morning I woke up I had AIDS. I was forty-eight and my health was gone, piles of pills and shitting my brains out. Fucked up, man. Then the antidepressants didn't work, and the mornings, fucking horrific. Almost two years of mornings sucking hard like that. Just put your feet on the floor, stand up, and keep going no matter what. Ruth never even
tried
to talk to me until after lunch. Then the eleven days without sleep. Those days there weren't
any
mornings because it was always morning. Now there's a huck-a-bucking fucking hellacious suck for you. No way to tell you how bad. Then the antidepressant that worked and the sleep meds and four months later, it's not a hell of a lot different. You open up your eyes, you get out of bed, look around the room, drugged zombie fuck.

Fucking mornings, man.

That morning waking up with Hank in my house is no different. I'd bought all the stuff for a healthy breakfast. Eggs, if Hank wanted them, pancake mix and real maple syrup if Hank wanted those. A bunch of different kinds of healthy cereals. Cheerios, Corn Flakes just in case. Bacon, ham, Italian roast for my French press. Toast. Tea, herbal and Earl Gray. Milk, sugar. Vegetables. I had it all.

The problem, though, isn't breakfast. It's that the host, the guy who's supposed to make breakfast – me, because breakfast comes in the fucking morning, is nowhere to be found. I mean, yeah, my body's there and I'm walking around and talking and doing things to make breakfast, but the human being named Ben Grunewald is in another dimension. The suck dimension. I mean, it's
morning
for Chrissakes.

The problem is how to tell Hank that I'm not really there, that actually I am in hell. You can't tell anybody what hell is like unless they've been there themselves. And Hank ain't been there. Not this hell. His cancer didn't get his spirit the way AIDS
got mine. Obviously. Hank's up at seven-thirty, showering, whistling in the shower, puttering around the house. Happy to be alive in a brand-new day.

Fucking Maroni, man. Wish I was made out of the same stuff as him.

Nine o'clock, I'm sitting at the table eating my five eggs, only two yokes, my bowl of kale and half a papaya. Hank says
I'll have what you're having
, so that's his breakfast, too.

“Hell, Gruney,” Hank says, “you got your nutrition shit together, man. This breakfast is
healthy
.”